It's been so long since IBM has seen a stock split, Wall Street has probably forgotten that it's even possible. But you can bet Sam Palmisano's last dollar that Big Blue is itching to do one, and by boosting its dividend and announcing yet another massive share repurchase campaign, it's one step closer perhaps to its first stock …

IBM .... The Elephant Dinosaur in the Room.

A pedant writes...

"Google and Berkshire Hathaway are two very pricey stocks that don't split"

Berkshire DO split. Firstly, they had two classes of share, the B share worth a thirtieth of the value of the A share (which is a de facto split IMHO). The B share was recently split and is now worth 1/1500 of the A share.

Sams leaving present

This is as much about protecting the greed of the senior managers as the greed of Wall Street. Stock exchanges and CEOs are not interested in the long term viability of the company, only their wallets today.

Thats why Sam spends billions propping up the share price while refusing to award pay increases to the majority of its employees and when it does they are small beer compared to the 18% increase in dividends. The recent row in the UK over early retirement and pensions was the company engineering a way of forcing staff into taking early retirement rather than offering redundancy, thus saving the parent company millions.